The whimsical musical Brigadoon, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Lowe, opened on Broadway on March 13, 1947, choreographed by Agnes De Mille. The fantasy was based on Germelshausen by German author Friedrich Gerstacker, although the setting was changed to Scotland for the musical. Two American tourists, Tommy, played by David Brooks, and Jeff, played by George Keane, wander into the mystical town of Brigadoon which appears only once every 100 years. Tommy falls in love with Fiona, played by Marion Bell (who was married to Lerner from 1947-1949), and must decide whether to return home and marry his overbearing fiancee or stay in Brigadoon from which he could never return. When he opts to return to Fiona, Brigadoon magically reappears and absorbs him. Brooks introduced “Almost Like Being in Love” in the musical.

Brigadoon won the Drama Critics Circle Award as best play of the year, the first musical to do so, according to David Ewen in The Complete Book of the American Musical Theater. De Mille won the Tony Award for Best Choreography, and Bell, Keane, and James Mitchell (as Harry) won the Theatre World Award for their performances.

The show also featured the popular songs “Come to Me, Bend to Me” and “The Heather on the Hill,” but the hit was “Almost Like Being in Love,” which has become the song preferred by jazz musicians. It charted three times in 1947:

• Frank Sinatra (1947, five weeks, #20)
• Mildred Bailey (1947 with Julian Work’s Orchestra, one week, #21)
• Mary Martin (1947 with Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, one week, #21)

The show opened in London’s West End in 1949 for a successful run and was revived on Broadway in 1957 and again in 1963. While neither of the New York revivals enjoyed a long run, the 1963 version picked up several awards. The third revival in 1980 ran for 133 performances and Meg Bussert, playing Fiona, won a Theater World Award. In the 1954 film Gene Kelly, starring as Tommy, sang “Almost Like Being in Love.” Van Johnson played the skeptical Jeff, and Fiona was played by dancer Cyd Charisse whose voice was dubbed by Carole Richards. A television version of Brigadoon was aired in 1967 with Robert Goulet as Tommy, Peter Falk as Jeff, and Sally Ann Howes as Fiona. The TV show won five Emmy awards.

Nat “King” Cole’s version of “Almost Like Being in Love” is heard at the end of the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins recorded the song in 1951 with the MJQ. Pianist Erroll Garner, violinist Joe Venuti, drummer Art Blakey, saxophonists Charlie Parker and Teddy Edwards, and vocalist Ella Fitzgerald recorded the tune, and Ray Brown played it on cello in his 1960 recording. Pianist Gene Harris and vocalist Michelle Hendricks covered it in 1990, organist Jack McDuff with Denise Perrier on vocals in 1991, and since 2000 vocal versions have predominated: Holly Cole, Laura Fygi, Kelly Broadway, and Terrie Richards Alden, who performs it with her guitarist husband Howard.